Freedom Flotilla member & supporter group chat shut down by Whatsapp
SMH @ activists using techno-fascist platforms for communications during an operation subject to state-actor level interference. I thought we recognised and acknowledged this problem 15-20 years ago already.
https://xcancel.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1965431513320927706
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I use WhatsApp cautiously with friends who still refuse to jump over to Signal (let alone Matrix or Session). But it's def mind blowing to read an activist group was relying on it for organizing. Reminds me of FB being used for organizing G20 and BLM demos -_-
Considering their entire marketing campaign is "nobody, not even WhatsApp can see your messages," I can see how folks would fall for that.
But they can see the metadata!
I think a lot of non-techie people only know signal from the Trump admin using it illegally earlier in the year. In a lot of people's minds because of that they think Signal = insecure because they don't get the nuances of why using it in that specific context -- on personal phones, using a third party app, with a random journalist in the mix -- was bad, but that for most people it's still one of the best options. WhatsApp on the other hand has a lot of marketing around it and if you didn't know that Meta is Facebook I think some people wouldn't even realise who the owners are.
I had a friend who heard signal was backdoored and that a regular old cell call was more secure. Had to correct that
wasn't it telegram that got hacked?
also i vaguely remember the signal ceo getting sued or something because they couldn't/wouldn't let some government body read someone's messages, because it's encrypted
I mean, based on the source, they're still even on Twitter which is a lot more overtly fascist than WhatsApp. So…yeah…
There are some unofficial pages on the fediverse: https://mastodon.bida.im/@globalsumudflotilla
But yeah no links or mentions to mastodon and federated platforms on their website
https://globalsumudflotilla.org/
That's fucked
A sad reality of political activism is the inability of many groups to follow proper opsec.
The number of people who are like "are you on Whatsapp? " fir secure conversations....
WhatsApp Supports starving children to death
Meta*
Yeah, that's curious. I'd think they'd be prepared with Signal at the very least and some backup self-hosted channel, as well as cameras and backup cell hotspots.
they were prepared for the drone hit the other day; so hopefully for this as well.
I'd imagine they could have a few spread out boats further and further behind, each with its own cell hotspot, beaming WiFi all around, so that they have to be jammed simultaneously to stop the livestreams from capturing the attacks.
Or fiber optic cable.
it sounds like it would be easier to pick them off one-by-one if they were far apart.
What difference would that make? If someone who does have big guns wants to take them out, they're going to end up at the bottom of the sea regardless of how clustered the boats are.
I think the notoriety is the point; since this flotilla is incapable of carrying anywhere near enough supplies to make a dent for the gazans; and also what netantayu desperately wants to avoid so that this can be more easily ignored; like everything else so far.
Sinking boats filled with famous people and foreign nationals whose gov'ts who would be forced to respond on their citizens' well-being would bring more attention and pressure; which is exactly what netantayu wants to avoid.
We saw the western govts pressure isreal by pretending to push for recognition of Gaza and the isrealis responded w air supply drops; more pressure might force them to stop slowly killing the Gazans.
This is why you don't use whatsapp
ftfy
Maybe the aim of the flotilla was to just make people aware that there are activists who are worried about gaza. Just to create media buzz.
They literally broadcast their location publicly on their website.
This public tracking is the only reason they didn't all get murdered on the last boat
Keep in mind the tweet refers to the group chat as used by the flotilla to communicate with their European supporters, not necessarily for their internal communications.
Maybe consider Signal instead?
Did they select Whatsapp as a main communication channel and direct their supporters to it?
Or did they just start a group chat to reach out to supporters who were already on the app?
Amazing that they weren't using Signal for comms outside their group, but for internal comms it's even more amazing they weren't using something like Meshtastic.
Can only say a person who has never used meshtastic.
Source: The struggle.
Not sure what you mean. I use Meshtastic a lot, both as a hobby but also for remote sensor reading and herd tracking. Works a treat.
I know this is off topic, but herd tracking? Critters? I'm always curious about people's lives.
Cows.
A friend of mine was taking over his family farm with access to open moorland for grazing and as an experiment we wanted to see if we could implement tracking without giving a monthly small fortune to a company for a proprietary product or noisy polluting methods like a helicopter. BLE beacons are cheap and long-lasting so each cow got one, and we bodged together about twenty solar powered Meshtastic nodes with GPS that were small enough to be worn on their collars (since the cows tend to heard together only one in the group needs a node), plus another dozen we could install at choke points on the land (old gates, land bridges, etc) the cows were likely to traverse. The nodes were like this, but smaller and shitter. The nodes were programmed to report every time they saw a BLE beacon nearby, with the mobile ones also reporting their own GPS location, all being fed into Home Assistant for mapping. I just checked and apparently, aside from a couple of storm-damaged fixed nodes and replacement batteries it's still going strong after two years.
That's cool as hell
Thank you for telling me about meshtastic!
For anyone like me who never heard of it before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshtastic
I wouldn't rule it out. But you can't do public comms over Signal.
Again, I wouldn't rule it out. But if I'm on a public group that's very likely compromised by the IDF, I'm not going to announce all the other protocols they need to block.
He's just reporting one avenue that's been closed to the protesters by a corporate entity that is now complicit in genocide.
With all respect to a privacy advocates(I'm one), but blaming them on using WhatsApp is besides the point, these people are not trying to hide their activities, or locations, and many of them are not tech-saavy, the shame is on the cess pool that is Meta, and all the other goons...this is so fucked up on so many levels.
WhatsApp admins are explicitly interfering with a public protest in order to satisfy a genocidal foreign government.
This is at least as big a deal as TikTok censorship of anti-China posters. It's just on behalf of a US ally, so we're defending it rather than threatening to interfere in their business practices in turn.
Who appoints WhatsApp administration heads if not Meta? It's the same picture.
I don't think Meta's the one they're going against, here
So happy not to be using Whatsapp...
100% CIA and mossad were watching those channels realtime.
I am pretty sure those groups were public
All the more reason to use Signal.
another reason why not to use whatsapp? for all that is good, don't use meta or any corporate technofascist company. there are better options.
At least they werent organising on discord, maybe its intentional to send a message to people about meta
Was this their main channel of communication or just a group they had for supporters?
Doesn't really matter, it's the metadata that reveals your connections and locations. Surprisingly big amount of useful (but not necessarily correct or verifiable) intel can be gathered without eavesdropping into the actual conversations. People have been - on other occasions - targeted because they were connected to a person, who's connections may have been suspicious to some state actors.
Huh? I was just curious, because it's quite different if they used this as their main-channel. Using WhatsApp for that would be crazy.
My point was that even one phone with the WhatsApp app itself can mean compromised opsec. No matter if it's used for operational communication or not, or whether or not the messages can be read by 3rd parties or not.
Damn, didn’t know Nitter still existed.
It was resurrected in February.
Ever since the Nitter matrix server got blasted with CSAM with no moderation I’m hesitant to spin up an instance, cool to see they have resurrected it I suppose.
When was that? I'm guessing it's when the project was abandoned, so there was no one there to remove it.
I'm in the room right now, and there is no spam.
So the Trump ass-kissers have given the King of Fools another gift for his pleasure. The cost to freedom is immense
Very odd from Whatsapp.
Totally consistent Meta is joined at the hip with US government and therefore more or less in league with Zionists, neocons and Israel just like every american big tech, bank and media company.
Lol wut? Meta has been working with the IOF and NSO and US for years
Do not use a centralized service for civil disobedience
Sounds like this group is more of a social media vibe group, rather then a group interested in real undermining of Zionism. Maybe stop being pawns for slacktivists with rich parents and try joining the PLO instead?